Do many people have any experience of using Ttouch calming bands for excessive barking? Nando is an extremely vocal dog and when he gets excited in the car he can bark. It's like he doesn't know he's doing it as his usual quiet command just doesn't register!

If he travels in a crate,you could cover the crate which may help him to travel calmly.
Re the bands,I've heard of them used in conjunction with hypnosis on people,especially for slimming etc. I had a grin when the image came to me of a driver twanging a band on the dogs wrist to stop a behavior and crashing the car...or is the band for your wrist ,to tune out his barking when you drive,chanting a mantra....seriously,I,d stick with the quiet command and keep practicing it with treat reinforcements.

https://mekuti.co.uk/calm_bands.htm
Ok .I.had a look at this, for a tenner ,it may be worth a try...it says it makes them "aware of their mouth"...lol.Good luck with this.

Ttouch has been really effective for Nando on firework night so as the calming bands are based on the same principle I thought I'd ask! To be honest though at first I thought the whole thing seemed crazy!

For the fireworks saga I've had good results with Bach rescue remedy,every 4 hr dosing,from afternoon to the evening of fireworks night( over here it is New Year's Eve).You can also try melatonin.
Maybe the Bach remedy would help calm your boy prior to a trip in the car?

> when he gets excited in the car he can bark

Have you tried taking him out for short runs in the car, where the only place he gets out is when you are back home? (would need to be increased to longer runs when he's calmer, or he'll soon suss the difference between a 'dummy' ride and a real one)

If a short/very short run still makes him bark you can go one step further and just put him in the car, start the engine, stop the engine & both get back out again, just to get him thinking that being in the car does not = really great things are happening (not a negative association, just a 'not-excited' one).

I don't know if it is because it makes them aware of their mouths or not but these bands do work, well at least with my noisy monster!

The barking is sometimes straight away as soon as he is in there, quite often he will actually bark on the way home from the walk too when he sees something that excites him (which can be another dog or a person behind us etc) I want to use the calming band in conjunction with training him as you describe.

> quite often he will actually bark on the way home from the walk too when he sees something that excites him

Sorry this isn't constructive, but ahhh, bless him, he's a happy chappy :)

I hope the calming bands help, they seem to work along the same lines as mindfullnes (?).
My sister has a chronic regional pain syndrome, she atteneded a pain management clinic that helps people, with long term pain, cope with it. One of the things she did was mindfulness and I remember part of that was about concentraiting on a specific area of the body or a specific sensation eg, feel how your hair may blow in the wind, or how a garment of clothing may rub your skin, etc.. The whole point is to sort of shift your focus. Seems like that's how these calming bands work.

He is a very excitable dog. He was really well balanced until one attack from another dog really took away his confidence at the wrong age. He is a bolshy dog that will listen as and when he pleases, but at the same time he is a big softy and quite nervous. He is slowly getting his confidence back but even things like people coming in and out of doorways or or entering a building he's not been in before, he yaps and yaps and yaps! His first response to low level excitement or something he's not confident of is to vocalise and so anything to make him more aware of it can't hurt as well as continuing socialisation with him. Not easy with a nearing 40 kilo GSD as it is very easy for him to LOOK out of control at that size as people always expect them on their best behaviour.

> Not easy with a nearing 40 kilo GSD as it is very easy for him to LOOK out of control at that size as people always expect them on their best behaviour.

Oh, I know so well what you mean!!

Such a shame he had that bad experience of the dog attack :(

Let us know how you get on with the bands.

Josh, whatever you do I think you may be onto a loser.  GSDs  love the sound of their own voices!  If they're happy, they bark, if they're unhappy they bark, sometimes the even bark just because they're bored.  Even if they're not barking, they're 'talking 'to you with that high pitched yowly thing that they do!

Good luck with trying to shut him up :-D

Haha I fear you may be correct Paula!

Josh,

Remember that once Nando has gone over threshold and into a barking session he's pretty much incapable of learning anything new. You've probably got to find a way of helping him to feel a bit less trigger happy and zylkene is a thought.

You need to do some really structured training around car journeys, very slowly building up his ability to be in that space without reacting to everything he sees and hears. I don't know how food orientated he is, but teaching Nando to chew something in the car might help relax as well as occupy him- provided he is not a resource guarder. Teaching him to carry something in his mouth while out and about may also help as it would slightly delay his ability to react to the impulse to bark- which with his watchdog hardwiring is hard for him to do.

Sorry, I'm have to do this quickly so it is in shorthand, but other ideas include teaching him to bark on command and introducing a quiet cue- he's allowed to alert you with a few barks but then stops on command. Take a look at the BAT website (behavioural adjustment training) by Grisha Stewart. It's a fairly new protocol to help reactive dogs as well as frustrated greeters.

Talk to your vet about zylkene. The problem with re-training very edgy/nervy dogs is that they are often so stressy that nothing goes in and they simply cannot learn a new way of dealing with life. If you can just keep them a bit calmer it is then possible for the training to have some effect.

Thanks for the advice, I did have a behaviourist out to him two weeks after the attack who showed me some of the B.A.T techniques for his reaction to other dogs and slowly but surely we are getting there :) Today on a two hour walk he didn't react to one dog when he was on lead which is fantastic as it's gone from reacting to any dog that was off lead (Whilst Nando was ON lead) to having a whole walk without a reaction.

A lot of it depends on my mood so if I'm having a day where I'm fed up or he's been a bit naughty and frustrated me I completely avoid scenarios with other dogs as he is so close to me he picks up on my mood so being aware of this also helps his reactions as I can manage them :)

I'm honestly not keen on medicating him however if the Ttouch techniques don't have the effect of bringing him a bit more below threshold than I'll speak to my vet about it.

Zylkene isn't a medication; it's based on a milk protein which has a soothing effect, rather like having a mug of Horlicks before you go to bed. :-) It doesn't need a prescription and can be bought over the counter. Another possibility is 'Calmex' which again isn't a medication.

Thats good to know! The name 'Zyklene' sounds very clinical so I assumed it was a prescribed medicine.

Josh, sorry should have explained about Zylkene- but it is as JG explains, so worth a try or, as she says, Calmex.

So glad you have gone the BAT route, stick at it and I'm sure you'll get good results. Yes, you are very wise to avoid training if you feel off, especially with an uber sensitive dog like Nando.

I paint an awful picture of him- from my post he sounds a bag of nerves- he is, overall, a fantastic dog and I am proud of his temperament. Right now we have a house full of strangers having a BBQ and he is outside, not pestering for food or jumping up at people, he is happy to just get a calm fuss and having strangers play fetch with him :)

He is sensitive to my emotions though- to the point where even if I walk him with my headphones in he plays up as he knows I don't have my full attention!

Josh,

He sounds lovely.

He really is lovely and I am proud of him :)